Low-dose total body irradiation can enhance systemic immune related response induced by hypo-fractionated radiation
Jing Liu1, 
Min Wu1, 
Jie Zhou2, 
ChuanFei Hu1, 
Juan Yang1, 
Dong Li1, 
Peng Wu1, 
Yue Chen1, Ping Chen1,
Sheng Lin1,
YongXia Cui1,
ShaoZhi Fu1* and 
JingBo Wu1 - 1Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, China
- 2Sichuan Cancer Hospital, China
A systemic immune related response (SIME) of radiotherapy has been occasionally observed on metastatic tumors, but the clinical outcomes remain poor. Novel treatment approaches are therefore needed to improve SIME ratio. We used a combination of hypo-fractionated radiation therapy (H-RT) with low-dose total body irradiation (L-TBI) in a syngeneic mouse model of breast and colon carcinoma. The combination therapy of H-RT and L-TBI potentially enhanced SIME by infiltration of CD8+ T cell and altering the immunosuppressive microenvironment in non-irradiated subcutaneous tumor lesions. The frequency of IFN-γ, as a tumor-specific CD8+ T cells producing, significantly inhibited the secondary tumor growth of breast and colon. Our findings suggest that L-TBI could serve as a potential therapeutic agent for metastatic breast and colon cancer and, together with H-RT, their therapeutic potential is enhanced significantly.
Keywords: systemic immune related response, hypo-fractionated radiation therapy, low-dose total body irradiation, immune enhancement,, Immunosuppressive microenvironment
Received: 11 Sep 2018;
Accepted: 06 Feb 2019.
Edited by:
Franz Rödel, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt, GermanyReviewed by:
Benjamin Frey, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, GermanyKatalin Lumniczky, Frédéric Joliot-Curie National Research Institute for Radiobiology and Radiohygiene, Hungary
Copyright: © 2019 Liu, Wu, Zhou, Hu, Yang, Li, Wu, Chen, Chen, Lin, Cui, Fu and Wu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dr. ShaoZhi Fu, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, Sichuan, China, shaozhifu513@163.com
